


sleep in quiet comfort

by thesunsethour



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Season/Series 05, Season/Series 12, Touch-Starved, the second half focuses on post-prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:53:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25940128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesunsethour/pseuds/thesunsethour
Summary: Penelope Garcia has braided Spencer Reid's hair twice in the years that she has known him.The circumstances could not have been more different, and yet so utterly identical.Spencer pities anyone who does not have a Penelope Garcia in their lives, whose smile can chase away the darkness.
Relationships: Penelope Garcia & Spencer Reid
Comments: 16
Kudos: 170





	sleep in quiet comfort

October 2009

Penelope Garcia has always prided herself on being a self-proclaimed ‘people person’. Very rarely has she come across someone capable of getting on her nerves, except, of course, if that person was one of the many serial killers that her job unfortunately exposes her to. For the most part, she has found that people are inherently good natured, and, as such, being friendly and bubbly was no skin off her back.

That being said, she currently felt like she was losing her mind.

“Reid if you don’t stop fiddling with my Rubik’s Cube in the next five seconds I will copy the unsub’s MO so your death will not be suspicious, don’t think I won’t.”

It was a testament to their five years of friendship that Reid quite obediently put down the Rubik’s Cube while simultaneously picking up one of her many multicoloured pens to mess with. He knew her well enough to know that her annoyance was only surface-level, and he also knew when to stop if she truly did need some peace and quiet.

Until then, he was content to be a little piece of shit.

Garcia decided to cut her losses, mumbling that she couldn’t wait until his leg was healed enough to allow him back on field duty. In response Reid merely grinned, popping another strawberry lollipop into his mouth.

The rest of the team was somewhere in rural Oregon, four days into what was beginning to look like a long and exhausting case. To make matters worse, there was very little for Reid and Garcia to do while holed up back in Quantico, and Garcia hated these slow-paced cases with a vicious passion. It was nearing ten at night and she was still waiting on results from a DNA test Hotch had asked her to locate, but even he was pessimistic about how relevant this information was going to be. Garcia could feel her eyes begin to droop shut, and her brain zone out from the computer screens in front of her, thoughts of her warm bed and her million pillows filling her mind.

But she forced her eyes open, blinking wearily and resting her chin on her hand. A quick glance to her left revealed that Reid, who was curled up at an unnatural angle in her other office chair, was also dozing off. Any murderous thoughts she may have harboured for him mere moments ago dissipated, as she fought to hold back a peal of laughter as his lollipop fell from his mouth and landed on the ground. She quickly binned it and turned back to her screens. As soon as these results came in, she could go home for the night, and pray that no new developments came through so she could get a decent six hour rest knowing that the rest of her family wasn’t in any sort of trouble.

Life, however, decided at that moment to be monumentally unfair.

The ringing of Garcia’s office phone seemed to crash through the silence that had enveloped the room, and Reid shot to attention beside her as fast as lightning, squinting confusedly at the noise. Quick as a flash, Garcia answered, desperately hoping everything was alright.

“Blonde and bubbly at your service! Also, please tell me why you’re calling so late, you never call so late unless something bad has happened and now I’m worried. You’ve officially worried me, Derek! The DNA results haven’t arrived yet, by the way, but that’s unimportant right now. Is everyone okay?”

“Everything’s fine, Baby Girl, chill out. We just got a new break on the first victim’s grandparents. The grandfather kept an insane number of journals, I’m thinking near fifty or sixty. Local PD has just finished taking pictures of each page and we’re gonna send them on to you.”

Garcia visibly relaxed at the dulcet tones of one Derek Morgan filling her office, and then began smirking as she realised what he was about to ask.

“God, it’ll take ages for me to sort through those diary entries,” she said with mock innocence, casting her eyes over to Reid, who’s own eyes were narrowing with suspicion.

“Yeah, I know. You know what we need, Mama?” Morgan’s tone matched hers, and if she tried she could almost picture the wide smile and sparkle in his eyes.

“What, sugar?”

“A super genius who can read 20,000 words a minute.”

“You’re so right! Especially one that owes me since he kept messing with my toys.”

Immediately after she said that she realised how wrong it sounded, but Reid’s exasperated groan and Morgan’s delighted laugh drowned out any backtracking she could have made.

“Pretty boy, I hope you’re not planning on stealing my Baby Girl, are you?”

Garcia let out a giggle at the irritated look on Reid’s face. “No, Morgan, she’s all yours. When do you need the diaries fully read for?”

“Not until the morning, 187, don’t rush yourself.”

With that Morgan hung up, and almost instantly a notification popped up on Garcia’s screen.

_8640 images available for download._

The two agents simply looked at each other, exhaustion etched into their skin.

“I’ll put on the coffee.”

Reid nodded and immediately began speed reading the first page of journals. Garcia sneaked a glance at the screen before leaving and then immediately wished she hadn’t. It seems their first victim’s grandfather liked to keep accounts of how viciously he was abused in the foster care system, and Garcia knew that she wouldn’t be able to handle that level of despair this late at night.

It took her just over five minutes to arrive back inside with two steaming mugs of coffee, and Reid was already on page 294. She smirked and placed his mug on the counter before taking her seat beside him. Mere seconds later another computer pinged, alerting her to the fact that the DNA results were back and were inconclusive. _Damn._ She quickly sent them on to Hotch anyway, wishing that she could do more to help.

Maybe she could.

Beside her, Reid was hunched over at an angle that must surely be wreaking havoc on his back, and every few seconds he would reach his hand up, pushing back loose strands of hair that fell over his face in untameable yet soft curls. She couldn’t hold in the snort of laughter that escaped her.

“What?” Reid’s disgruntled face was a sight to behold, and Garcia found herself smiling more.

“Boy wonder, how do you get anything done with your hair in your face like that?”

He rolled his eyes fondly, but didn’t answer her question, instead opting to keep scrolling through the seemingly endless diary entries on the screen in front of him.

But Penelope Garcia was not one to be easily deterred.

Feigning an air of nonchalance, she got up from her chair and plopped herself on the counter beside Reid. Because of the angle he was sitting at, Garcia had easy access to the sides of his head. Without any prior warning, she grabbed a strand of hair that was covering his right eye, quickly divided it into three sections, and began to braid it. 

It took Reid’s brain several seconds to disconnect from the words in front of him to recognise what Garcia was doing. He quickly turned his neck, reminding Garcia of a cartoon owl, and peered at her in confusion.

“What are you doing?”

“French braids! They’ll keep your hair back and also look super cute, now shhh.”

Maybe it was the fact that it was nearing eleven at night and he was too tired to argue, but after a few seconds of a blank gaze Reid just shrugged and nodded, turning back to his work as Garcia gathered more strands of hair to pull back into the braid.

It was strangely peaceful. All they could hear was the soft humming noise of Garcia’s computers and their own breathing. This sense of tranquillity lay over them like a fluffy blanket, keeping them warm.

It didn’t take long for Garcia to finish the two braids, and as she secured the second one with a light blue elastic she couldn’t help but admire her handiwork. _Maybe they should invite Reid to one of their girls nights._

She was just about to voice this thought when she glanced down him and had to resist the urge to coo at the sight.

Reid had fallen asleep. He looked impossibly young, and almost cherubic in his slumber.

Garcia knew that he would wake up with an ache in his neck if he slept here until morning, and she also knew that Morgan needed those diary entries by sunrise. But there was no way in hell she was waking her baby genius up. The boy didn’t sleep enough anyway.

Easing herself down into the extra office chair, she clicked her computer back on. 

She had a lot of words to read.

(But she didn’t mind.)

*

June 2017

It was cold for this time in the summer, Spencer Reid mused from his position on his discoloured leather sofa. As he sat there, back ramrod straight, he could feel the slight breeze coming through the open window across from him. He thinks JJ might have opened it when she was over for dinner a few days ago, but he hasn’t shut it yet. It was weird. Temperatures in Virginia averaged 85 Degrees Fahrenheit, (or 29.4 Degrees Celsius) during a typical June. But now, it couldn’t be more than 55.

It made sense, he supposed. Nothing else was normal anymore; why should the weather be?

If he listened very closely, he could almost hear his mother’s gentle breathing from her bedroom down the hall. Except, that was impossible because she had to be readmitted into a facility. She needed it, he knew. The stress her mind had been under wasn’t healthy, and she needed professional help. That didn’t stop the overwhelming guilt that invaded his mind as he watched her being led away. He knew that feeling now. 

It had been exactly two weeks since his exoneration from prison; since Scratch’s death, since Stephen Walker’s death, since Emily’s kidnapping and rescue. It had been two weeks, and yet it simultaneously has felt like two seconds and two years.

It has been much longer than two weeks since he has managed to sleep more than three hours at a time. The constant vigilance that prison taught him – that prison _beat_ into him has made him a light sleeper, prone to waking up at all hours of the night. The nightmares, too, were to be expected, but that didn’t make dealing with them any easier. They were different from the ones he suffered after Tobias’ death, or Emily’s, or Maeve’s or Gideon’s. They seemed to haunt his consciousness even when awake.

He was planning on spending another night curled up on his sofa, listening to the sounds of the night from his open window, when his plans were interrupted by a rather loud knock on his front door.

The team had developed a visitation schedule for him. JJ came by on Mondays and Thursdays to have dinner with him and chat about his godsons. Luke and Tara would pop over on Tuesdays with Luke’s dog Roxy to watch some TV. Rossi and Emily were on Wednesday and Friday duties, and they usually just sat around talking about nothing in particular, especially not about the last six months. Penelope had reserved Saturdays to herself, and yet was prone to tagging along on someone else’s designated day just because “she missed him”.

He knew what they were doing. They were his family and were reluctant to leave him alone for too long, especially because his therapy appointments didn’t start until next week. Apparently, there was a long waiting list for bureau-mandated therapists, and Spencer wasn’t surprised at that.

But he _hated_ their visitation schedule.

It reminded him too much of prison. The regimented nature of his day-to-day life. The small visits from his friends on the outside. It was suffocating, and even though he was home, and free, he still felt like he couldn’t breathe the air around him.

PTSS, Luke had called it. 

_Fucking shit_ is what Spencer preferred.

The knock on his door got louder and he was jolted from his thoughts violently.

It was Sunday, and so he had anticipated being able to spend the entire evening by himself. But obviously, someone had seen fit to disturb those plans, and disturb them incredibly loudly.

“Coming!” he called out, wincing at how raspy his voice sounded from nearly two days of muteness. It took a gargantuan effort to lift his body off the sofa and shuffle towards the door. It was only when he reached it and had a hand stretched out to open it did he realise that he was dressed only in a pair of dark pyjama bottoms and an old Caltech sweater. The sweater was too big on him still, even though it was 17 years old and had gone through several thousand washes. It was far too big even when he bought it, but there was only one size available. He glanced down at his mismatched socks, one orange and one purple, and decided that this outfit was acceptable enough for whoever the hell was outside.

“Boy Wonder! Open up!”

Ah, Garcia then.

Opening the door revealed a rainbow of colour, one that promptly marched into his apartment and dumped a large bag on the floor by the sofa.

“Holy crackers, its freezing in here. Do you not have heating? I’m pretty sure you have heati- Oh your windows open. Let me get that.”

And then Penelope was closing his window, drawing the curtains, and turning on the overhead light, giving the room an amber glow that already felt cosier than the blue-tinged darkness that preceded it.

“Of course, we’ll open the curtains again in the morning, let some sun in. Do you have any coffee? That was a stupid question, of course you have coffee. Sit down, my sweet, and pick a movie for us.”

Spencer blinked slowly, sleep-deprived brain attempting to process the whirlwind that had just come upon his apartment. But he knew when Garcia got like this that there was absolutely no stopping her, and so he just nodded, and did as she said.

As he flicked through the assortment of DVDs he owned (with Morgan’s teasing voice in his ear telling him to get Netflix), he cast his mind back to the events of the past week, hoping to find some reasoning as to why he had a member of the team over on a non-designated day. When Penelope re-emerged with two cups of coffee balanced perilously in one hand and a bag of chocolate treats in the other, he understood.

Years ago, before prison and Mr. Scratch and Morgan leaving, before Maeve and Doyle and even Tobias Hankel, he and Penelope would occasionally have movie marathons. They’d set out to watch the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, only to fall asleep halfway through the second one. They’d get nine tenths of the way through a season of Doctor Who before feeling their eyes grow heavier and heavier until they closed fully. Spencer could vaguely remember mentioning to Rossi that sleeping was hard; that he so desperately wanted to sleep, because he was starting to feel the tiredness in his bones, but that he was so dreadfully afraid of what night terrors awaited him. He recalled the look on Rossi’s face after he admitted that, and promptly changed the subject. His team shouldn’t have to worry about him anymore. They did enough of that while he was locked away.  
He silently handed Penelope the remote to press play on the first Lord of the Rings movie, and nearly smiled when he saw the satisfied look on her face that meant a good choice had been made.

They settled down to watch it in comfortable silence, and over the next three hours they shifted positions on the sofa so that occasionally his head was resting on her lap, or her entire body was draped over his long legs. She didn’t demand he try and talk, or laugh, or smile and for that Spencer was grateful. He hasn’t done much of any of that lately.  
Five hours later and they were two thirds of the way into the second movie. Spencer could tell that Penelope was getting progressively more tired, even from his position on the ground, with his back resting against her legs as she sat on the sofa. Her hands were slowly carding through his hair, detangling any knots.

“Do you remember how long your hair was a few years ago? Of course you do. God, what a head of hair. All us girls were jealous, Spence.”

Spence. That was another thing he noticed. The team were far more inclined nowadays to call him by that moniker rather than ‘Reid’, and he had a sneaking suspicion that it was done in an attempt to remind him that he was still human, not an inmate or a convict. He liked it. He hated that he liked it. He hated that everything was so conflicted in his brain. He hated the memories and flashbacks that plague his days, and the phantom sensations of fists against his stomach, his arms, his face. 

Some days it felt like he never left that godawful place. Those were the days when he would lock himself in his bathroom for hours on end because it felt like solitary confinement and _solitary was the only place you can be safe in and even then its not true safety if Shaw has the guards under his thumb and Shaw can do anything and he killed him he killed him they killed him right in front of you and you’re innocent but are you really because you have to survive and you can barely breathe and you hate this you hate this you hate this-_

With a slight jolt Spencer came back to reality, a frown tugging at his lips. He spent far too long zoned out of conversations these days; if you could call what he and Penelope were sharing a conversation. She was doing all the talking, all the heavy lifting. She was the one making the coffee and bringing the sweets. She was-

She was tugging softly at a strand of his hair and dividing it into three sections.

“Can I braid it? I won’t touch you if you don’t want me to.”

And Spencer nearly started crying there and then, because nothing has changed, and everything has. Penelope still wants to mess with his hair, just as she still has a truly remarkable collection of figurines and a smile that can brighten the night sky. She wants to touch him, and Spencer finds himself unable to truly verbalise just how much he wants - _needs_ that touch.

Months on end of guards screaming “no touching!”, only to turn a blind eye when he was being assaulted. Months without Rossi’s reassuring pats on the shoulder, or joyful kisses on the forehead. Without JJ’s hugs, so warm and safe. Its been even longer since Morgan has slung an arm around his shoulder or cupped the back of his neck. Half of his brain is filled with statistics on touch starvation, while the other half focuses on willing himself not to fall apart and break into a million shattered pieces in front of Penelope.

“I’d like that”, he managed to croak out, and although he couldn’t see her smile, he knew it was there, keeping the darkness away.

Spencer fell asleep halfway through the second French braid, and so was unable to see how Penelope turned off the television and dimmed the lights. He was unable to see how she cleaned the empty coffee mugs and threw away the chocolate wrappers. How she gently moved him until he was lying down on the couch, head once again resting on her lap. How she gave his plaits a soft, fond tug as she draped a blanket over the two of them.

How she smiled through tears as she looked down at her Boy Wonder, once again so peaceful in sleep.

Spencer Reid wasn’t awake to see this, but he knew it in his heart. 

How sweet it is to have a friendship so pure. How wonderful it is to have Penelope Garcia in his life.

(The next morning, he smiled. He had slept six hours.)

**Author's Note:**

> i LOVE their friendship and i wish we saw more of it. i also wish we saw reid in braids (i think its braids for americans? im irish and i always say plaits but im pretty sure americans call them braids. someone help me)
> 
> anyway i hope you enjoyed!! comment and i will love you forever and forever


End file.
